What is personal branding?

Personal branding describes the process by which individuals and entrepreneurs differentiate themselves and stand out from a crowd by identifying and articulating their unique value proposition, whether professional or personal, and then leveraging it across platforms with a consistent message and image to achieve a specific goal.

It’s a bit long-winded, but I think this captures the essence of what personal branding is.

The end goal is to have a unique value proposition, build a strong reputation in your industry, and establish trust and rapport with your audience.

So let’s start with the basics.

Developing a personal value proposition

Before you can do anything else, you need to build a foundation first.

Developing a personal value proposition (PVP) will serve as your foundation and will influence your direction, approach, and the decisions you make.

But you have to start somewhere. You have to learn to crawl before you can walk and eventually get to the top.

Or as Drake would say,

Started from the bottom, now we’re here.

So, how do you start building a presence?

Fortunately, the Internet provides us with plenty of avenues.

I suggest doing “the big three” to begin:

Create a professional website (preferably on WordPress) – This will serve as your “home base” online. Check out this guide from Quick Sprout for more on this.

Start and maintain a blog on your website – This is one of the best ways to develop your voice and create a unique identity.

Have profiles on at least three social media networks – Start with LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter or Instagram, and gradually expand. But don’t spread yourself too thin to the point where you can’t consistently update.

Here’s a quick tip about choosing usernames: use a format that’s easy to remember, and try to use the same username for all your profiles. Consistency and homogeneity are essential for branding.

The initial stages of launching your personal brand are time-consuming.

That’s why I recommend focusing exclusively on your website, blog, and social media for at least the first month or two.

You want to make sure you’re devoting the necessary amount of time to generate some buzz.

Ideally, you’ll gain at least a small core audience for your blog and a few hundred social media followers.

Once you get to that point, it’s time to crank it up a notch.

Exploring other content mediums

If you’ve been following me for any length of time, you’ll know that the content I’ve created over the years has been a primary contributing factor to my personal brand development.

Getting free press

The final step is to get press coverage so you can build your audience even more.

Here’s a look at how Tim Ferriss got coverage for his book, The 4-Hour Workweek (remember, this was before he had the massive personal brand he does today and when he was in the same boat as many of you at the moment):

Many people underestimate the power of conventional media outreach. Even though the heyday of newspapers is over, there are still ways to gain an incredible reach and immense power through media channels.

Conclusion

It’s easy to get overwhelmed with the process of launching a personal brand.

There are so many areas to cover that you may not even know where to start.

But when you break it down step by step and check off one thing it a time, it becomes a lot more manageable.

I like to approach it like construction of a building.

You start with a sturdy foundation (a PVP) and gradually build from there. It’s a process.

The most practical bit of advice I can give you is to be patient and stay the course.

Once you gain some initial momentum, it gets a lot easier to pick up some speed.

And once you finally get to the point where you’ve established a legitimate personal brand, the new opportunities that come your way will be completely worth it.

What do you think is the single most important aspect of launching a personal brand?